And don't forget to blow on them!
Elite studio should be sold
- Thread starter Salmonea
- Start date
That's the overflow lounge when the bar gets busy on the weekends.
There are too many Commanders docked at the bar, they're waiting for a slot.
You've got to be kidding, right?
I'll be the first to say I think FDev can be a bit, erm, "erratic" with their development process but, let's face it, there's probably a good reason why there aren't many other similar games on the market.
Ask yourself why, if a company like Microsoft or EA had the ability or inclination to create a game like ED, they haven't done so.
Simple fact is, it's a gigantic project aimed at a niche market.
You've only got to look at the statistics for stuff like players who've never bought a ship or travelled only a handful of Ly to see what the rate of player-attrition is.
FDev have taken a big gamble by continuing to support ED, on the assumption that the limited player-base will be loyal and continue to be a source of revenue.
Do you think MS or EA would risk that, rather than just knocking out yet another FPS or racing game?
ED probably is a "vanity project" for DB but we're all in it with him and I doubt there's another company in existence that would continue to support it.
This is what happens if you get too critical of the game on the forums...
Microsoft made Freelancer
Great game, and as all MS products eventually go, done, servers offline.
but, no comparison
very similar game, but totally different and ofc no roadmap, no future
Braben created Elite. fun was had
he re-created it
and again as a kickstarter with a story and a 10 year plan(map)
Those thinking they could do better, are trying already. they have had over 40 years to do so.
E.D. has the cmdrs it has for a reason. history already says he knows his stuff.
any one can criticize
very few have a creative spark.
fewer still can keep building the same thing over and over like this and succeed each time.
Great game, and as all MS products eventually go, done, servers offline.
but, no comparison
very similar game, but totally different and ofc no roadmap, no future
Braben created Elite. fun was had
he re-created it
and again as a kickstarter with a story and a 10 year plan(map)
Those thinking they could do better, are trying already. they have had over 40 years to do so.
E.D. has the cmdrs it has for a reason. history already says he knows his stuff.
any one can criticize
very few have a creative spark.
fewer still can keep building the same thing over and over like this and succeed each time.
Both true, of course.
The big thing about Elite Dangerous which is both an essentially unique feature in a game and a source of a huge number of problems is that it has a practically-infinite number of full-scale star systems modelled at least in part to sub-metre resolution.
From a game design point of view that's a really silly idea. The core game mechanics [1] of trade, combat, mining, missions, piracy, smuggling, warfare, politics, etc. etc. at best don't benefit from that at all, and more often actually get harmed by it. Other than NMS, all of Elite Dangerous's modern spaceship game competitors - in a broad sense! - have a game world smaller than the bubble. Most of them have a game world smaller than Colonia. Some of them have a game world considerably smaller than a single gas giant ring system. And in terms of both quality of gameplay and ease of implementation, they're much better off for it. Gameplay does not generally benefit from simulating endless cubic gigametres of identical empty space.
But of course once you've reduced the game world to a scale which better supports the gameplay, you then start asking obvious questions like "why are we setting this in space at all?", and don't have the 90s excuse of "because FillScreen(black) is really quick and that's 95% of the graphics done". So maybe you just set it on a planet and make everyone's life easier.
Thing is ... being able to do both exploration and non-exploration gameplay in the same game turns out to be a really important feature too. Things like Colonia or the Distant Worlds Expedition or even a fair bit of the current Azimuth storyline actually do need both a reasonably well-defined non-exploration gameplay region and a ridiculously oversized galaxy to work. And so do various more routine things which many players do all the time.
So you get the interesting situation where:
- Elite Dangerous, despite its successes in some areas (including, importantly, "being fun enough that people keep playing it"), is actually pretty bad compared with other spaceship games (including much older spaceship games) in a whole bunch of major gameplay areas. And sure, there's lots of things Frontier could improve on ... but a lot of it is fundamental to it being Elite Dangerous.
- anyone else wanting to make "a spaceship game" wouldn't try to make "Elite Dangerous but better", so no matter how good NMS or the X series or some future project gets, it's not going to address the reasons people play Elite Dangerous rather than anything else out there.
...and so the last eight years of "this is terrible! let me play it for another 1000 hours just in case I've missed something", and the hope that either the next released space game would be better at being Elite Dangerous, or that some mythical company would both be competent enough to take over Elite Dangerous development and overconfident enough to want to take over Elite Dangerous development, but hasn't taken the opportunity in the last decade to just build its own.
[1] Obviously exploration - or at least certain types of exploration - actually need all that ridiculous scale, but there's a fair argument that if you wanted to make a game about deep space exploration and months-long expeditions a long way from home, you should just make a game about that and leave out the trading, combat, etc. side of it. Actually aim to attract the "Combat? In an Elite game?! Disgraceful!" crowd, rather than accidentally having them show up and then complain about everything else.
That's right. That's why the people that think selling it to another party will somehow magically solve all the problems are deluded.
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
Announce it on TikTok.
I rather keep it where it is. New owner means new problems and worst of all, this game becoming another Pay to Win type of a game. We can see everytime any company changes ownership, first thing new owners will do is everything and all to make a profit so their investment will get a high return.
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
I have extractly same thing with a certain other gam... I mean tech demo. Every time I try to play it it bugs out on me, then I curse it and then it bugs out even more.
They know.
look ay Freelancer and Starlancer
While I can think of devs and publishers that could do a better job going forward with the current base, (especially on the RPG front), I am a long way of from demanding the Fdev be sold. The game took a few turns I consider to be wrong ones. So what, big woop. Others like it, and I can always play something else.
A lot of people are jumping to that conclusion, but Braben's note never said any such thing:
"Over the last several months, we have been wrestling with the best way to move forward, and it is with a heavy heart we have decided to cancel all console development. We need to be able to move forward with the story of the game, and in order for us to do this we need to focus on a single codebase."
It is understandable that people are reading console development troubles into that supremely vague statement, but all it actually says is that they want to focus on PC to "move the story forward." Honestly, that could mean anything from "it was taking too long to port EDO over to consoles" to "we don't want to be bothered with the extra work required to maintain the console version of ED." In fact, seeing how Braben's note doesn't just nix EDO on consoles but all future content updates for the base EDH game as well, I think the latter interpretation is closer to the truth.
such as Star Citizen
You forgot the sarcasm tags!
OP a lot of players have played this game from year dot (me include) and will continue playing (that’s PC and Consols) and will continue to do so until the servers are shut down, this is a Frontier game it has its faults some big ones but no other software house would have created a full sized galaxy with four main game choices to use in it as Frontier has there is another game you can go to if your happy to pay to use but as yet the game are still has not reached alpha yet and they have there own problems and as far as I know you can’t play on consoles but I may be wrong on that. This game will continue with it’s player base and under the same house now with only one code set to manage hopefully giving them and us a better,easier and quicker updates for this space opera.
Indeed, that is an alternative interpretation also, I guess it dedpends on how one regards the efforts made by Frontier, and how 'salty' they feel?
Dr Ross commented that at the time of her leaving Frontier that work was continuing to port EDO to console. (October last yer, wasn't it?) The fact that David Braben had to 'announce' it was no longer coming to consoles is an admission of failure, regardless of the circumstance.
Sell to Microsoft?
The people who have said Starfield will outsell Skyrim?
The only thing they'll do is bury it and TBH I can't think of anyone who would do much better.
The people who have said Starfield will outsell Skyrim?
The only thing they'll do is bury it and TBH I can't think of anyone who would do much better.